


Home from the Sea

by danceswithgary



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-14
Updated: 2008-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-04 01:28:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithgary/pseuds/danceswithgary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You hear cautious footsteps before a voice and he's telling you of a day spent beneath a bright sun and of walking the edges of an uncharted sea."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home from the Sea

Left behind, you wait.

Emergency abated, ordinary on hold, you enter a shadowed room degrees cooler with the absence of a grin and warm hazel eyes. The hand-sewn quilt on the bed makes promises, and you slip it around your shoulders before stepping outside for the stars.

No clouds mar the view, though the lights of the city intrude on constellations built of ancient myths new to you. You wait, and the second moon rises to wash away the dimmest with blue-silver light, outshining the invisible three. You shiver and you pace away the night chill until bone-deep weariness turns fanciful and the balcony takes on the lines of a widow's walk suspended high above the sea, and you shake your head in amused self-mockery.

You've seen him lost on the ground, the sky his domain, but you wonder if sextant and compass would once have proved their worth on wind-swept seas. Imagination supplies a storm with a lighthouse piercing the gloom, a stone tower warning of danger and promising safe harbor and warmth that waits within. His stoic face is there in your mind, his back to the wind that drives him homeward.

Leaning against ancient stone, you mark the waning of the first moon and the last hour of the day as it prepares to abdicate to the new. You hear cautious footsteps before a voice and he's telling you of a day spent beneath a bright sun and of walking the edges of an uncharted sea. There's a brief touch as he pleads for attention, and then there is a gift.

It gleams softly on his palm and reminds you of abandoned oceans galaxies away, washed strange with curves never dreamt of on Earth, an alien nautilus. He stands there waiting, eyes uncertain, lips pressed tight against words he'll never speak aloud, foolishly worried as if there were any chance you would reject something he offers from his hand, his heart.

You accept, you hold tight, and you listen closely for the faint whisper of love...love...love against your ear.

And it is there.

_ **Sailor Home From the Sea** (Dorothy Hewitt)_

_Oh Cock of the North with a dream in his hand_  
My love has come home to this beautiful land  
He bursts through the door with his eyes like the sun  
And his kitbag crammed full of the treasures he's won

_A coral from Broome and a tall Darwin tale_  
A pearl and a clam and the jaws of a whale  
My kitchen is filled with the smell of the sea  
And the leaping green fishes my love brings to me

_Oh tumble your treasures from Darwin and Broome_  
And fill with their glory this straight little room  
With the sun of the morning ablaze on his chest  
My love has come home from the north of north-west

_And deep in our bed we'll lie and we'll be_  
We'll kiss and we'll listen to the rain on the sea  
Warm as the summer, we've lived winter long  
My love has come home like King Solomon's song  


Artwork by mella68  


**Author's Note:**

> Written in collaboration with mella68 for artword Challenge 015 - Astronomy, which was based on the pictures found at Astronomy Picture of the Day. We narrowed down our choice of pictures to two and then we bounced back and forth on the idea of seas and lighthouses and Rodney waiting. It morphed from a future post-Atlantis to a historical AU to this final version inspired by mella68's beautiful artwork. Great fun!


End file.
